2nd International Conference

STEAMConf Barcelona 2017

3rd. International Education Conference

CosmoCaixa, Barcelona, April 20, 21 & 22

Speakers

Vicki Abeles, is a filmmaker, speaker, and passionate education advocate. Abeles began her career as a Wall Street attorney and turned filmmaker in 2007 when she co-directed the award winning documentary, Race to Nowhere, a vivid portrayal of the pressure-cooker culture dominating America’s schools. Abeles has brought Race to Nowhere to millions of viewers around the globe. She is the author of a book featuring education change makers published by Simon & Schuster. Abeles is currently in production on a film about the math crisis in America and the inspiring educators on a mission to solve it. She is also co-author of the End the Race Companion Book for parents, educators and students (2010).

Boris Mir, passionate about education, is a secondary school teacher. He was one of the founders of the Institut-Escola Les Vinyes in Castellbisbal, part of UAB’s (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) innovative institute network. He has been the driving force behind projects on education assessment, learning strategies and creativity in the classroom. He collaborates with other centres, institutions and groups to help them transform education. Currently he is assistant director of the Escola Nova 21 programme.

Arvind Gupta is an Indian toy inventor and populariser of science for kids. Creating simple toys out of trash and everyday goods, he illustrates principles of science and design in a memorable hands-on fashion. He’s the author of numerous books available in English, Hindi and other Indian languages, including Little Toys, Amazing Activities, Science from Scrap, and Science Skills & Thrills: The Best of Arvind Gupta. His Low-Cost Equipment for Science and Technology Education is available as a PDF downloadthrough UNESCO. Many of his toy designs are explained in one-minute videos.

Eduard Muntaner, is a computer engineer and an expert in maker education. Since 2005, he has been developing projects at the intersection of Education, Technology and Development Cooperation, with special emphasis on promoting creativity and critical thinking in schools in disadvantaged communities. He recently founded the international project Inventors4Change, which promotes Education for Global Citizenship through collaborative digital storytelling, among children from vulnerable groups in India and Catalonia. He currently works in the UdiGitalEdu group at the University of Girona.

Anna-Mari Jaatinenhas been the principal at Siltamäki Elementary School since 2004, following 5 years as a teacher. Anna-Mari Jaatinen focuses on all of the structural elements that a school should consider – creativity, innovation, community, art and technology. Since 2011 she has been developing the Creative Fire Model (CFM), a leadership development training programme, which will be implemented between 2016 and 2020 and aims to lead change in leadership as well as in the operational culture of schools. The CFM aims to improve community, creativity and problem solving by inspiring and strengthening social skills in schools and emphasising key areas in education: know-how, creating new networks and learning communities.

Agnès Barba became director of a school in Bellvitge at the age of 25, since when she has watched the gradual transformation of a situation with many failings, all “thanks to the commitment and perseverance of many” and the idea of a style of education “where the teacher does not provide the answers but helps find them and ask the right questions”. She has dedicated her career to educational redesign movements, reflection groups and at the same time, with a restless spirit, dreamt of a different type of school. Seven years ago she was able to set up a living, active school, respectful of the development process of each child, where, for much of their time, the boys and girls decide what they want to do and roam freely around the different learning environments.

Linda Liukas is the author of Hello Ruby, the world’s most whimsical way to teach kids about technology, a book that teaches the basics of programming through stories and kid-friendly activities. Linda is a central figure in the world of programming and has worked on edutech even before it was called such. Linda is a former student of CodeAcademy and the founder of Rails Girls, a global phenomenon that teaches the basics of programming, aimed at helping young women understand and become more involved in technology and creating new ideas. Having never really outgrown fairytales, Linda sees the web as a maze of stories and wants to hear more diverse voices in that world. She was educated at the Turku School of Economics and Aalto University’s School of Arts, Design and Architecture.

Mariona A. Cíller co-founder and director of SokoTech, she loves free hardware and software. She is a graphic and web designer, a programmer and a science and tech event organiser. She also designs initiatives for children and young people in an old chocolate factory in La Sagrera, Barcelona. She graduated cum laude from Illinois University with a double degree as a Bachelor of Fine Arts and later a Master of Science. She is also a graduate of the Fab Academy of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her thesis “Free Culture Project”, which combines the power of technology with the transforming power of education, was a turning point in her career, towards areas for redesigning the world of teaching and learning, trying out new models that always include the most advanced technologies.

¡Eric Rosenbaum wants to amplify your imagination. He is a member of the Scratch Team at MIT Media Lab, where he completed his dissertation, “Explorations in Musical Tinkering.” He is a co-inventor of the Makey Makey invention kit and developer of Glowdoodle, Singing Fingers, MelodyMorph and other technologies for creative play.

Marc Sibilais a professor, musician and maker. After spending time in the industrial sector, he now works at EDN school in Navàs (@EDN_navas) where he teaches technology, music and robotics to secondary and baccalaureate students and also those on vocational training courses. He is also a guitar teacher at the local music school, EMM Mestre Castella de Navàs and plays and has played different instruments in numerous music groups. For the last few years he has also been a Maker on the Instròniks education programme (@instroniks) where technology and music come together to create different devices and instruments that can be used to create music. You could say he is a luthier of 21st century electronic instruments.

Babette Allina, since coming to RISD in 2008 she has combined her experience as an artist with her background in public policy to advance the national agenda for STEAM – adding art to the national emphasis on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education by raising awareness of the power of art and design to transform education, research and workforce development. As executive director of Government Relations + External Affairs, Allina serves as RISD’s primary liaison with governmental leaders in the city of Providence, at the Rhode Island State House and in the US Congress, and with other external partners.

Ángel Domingo is Deputy Director General of Innovation, Training and Guidance at the Department of Education. He is a biologist and educator who dedicates his professional life to teaching sciences, teacher training, educational innovation and redesign in the assessment and learning of students and in the organisation of schools.

Sylvia Martinez is co-author of Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom, a book that has been qualified as the “bible of the classroom maker movement”. For the previous ten years Sylvia was President of Generation YES, a non-profit organization evangelizing student leadership through modern technology. She advocates globally for authentic learning using real world design principles and hands-on experiences. Sylvia weaves examples from present day schools that use technology in authentic ways with her own experiences from the real world of work in video game development and aerospace engineering. She holds a Master’s in Educational Technology from Pepperdine University, and a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from UCLA.

Susanna Tesconi Senior FabLearn Fellow at Stanford University, has a Masters in Education Research from UAB (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), where she is currently doing her doctoral thesis. In addition to her research work, Susanna also collaborates as an educational designer with LABoral the Art and Industrial Creation Centre in Gijón and other centres and institutions. Currently she is an educational advisor on the Breakers Project for the Orange Foundation, a programme designed for vulnerable young people, which combines the digital innovation of Maker and FabLab spaces with project based learning.

Bob Lenz is an authority in the US on redesigning secondary education, project based learning, 21st century skills education and on performance assessment. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has recognised him as a Senior Deeper Learning Fellow. He is the author of Transforming Schools: Using Project-Based Learning, Performance Assessment and Common Core Standards, recently published by Jossey-Bass Wiley. Before taking the helm at BIE, Bob co-foundedEnvision Education, serving as CEO and Chief of Innovation until 2015.

Catherine Siller is an artist, performer and educator who works with projections: projected images and text, projected social ideals, projected versions of herself. Catherine develops custom software so that she can dance with her digital doubles. Her work as an educator empowers students to include new technological tools and at the same time study the concept in more depth.